The nation’s attention may be focused right now on the twists and turns of New Hampshire’s First in the Nation primary. But new pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency put a more troubling spotlight on New Hampshire – and on its largest utility, Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH). 

According to the data, PSNH is the region’s top toxic polluter, and PSNH’s coal-fired power plant in Bow, Merrimack Station, releases more toxic pollution to the environment than any other facility in New England. Because of PSNH, New Hampshire as a whole is first in New England in toxic pollution.

The numbers tell a striking story.  In 2010, Merrimack Station released 2.8 million pounds of toxic chemicals to the environment, mostly in air pollution.  That’s an astonishing 85% of the 3.3 million total pounds of toxic pollution released in New Hampshire in 2010. When you add in PSNH’s coal-fired Schiller Station in Portsmouth and its gas and oil-fired Newington Station in Newington, PSNH was responsible for a total of 3 million pounds of toxic pollution in 2010, more than 90% of New Hampshire’s toxic pollution. 

PSNH’s pollution isn’t saving energy consumers anything – PSNH’s rates are among the highest in New England because of the escalating costs of maintaining PSNH’s old, inefficient power plants. And those rates are slated to steadily climb as PSNH customers – mostly residents and small businesses – watch large commercial and industrial customers reject the costs of PSNH’s above-market coal-fired power to buy from cost-effective, competitive suppliers. As a result, most New Hampshire residents are left with the raw deal of paying among the highest rates for the dirtiest power in New England.

The data is a fresh reminder of why CLF is fighting so hard to hold Merrimack Station accountable for violating the Clean Air Act. In November, CLF made the case in federal court that PSNH’s failure to obtain permits for changes at Merrimack Station has meant that PSNH has evaded requirements for state-of-the-art pollution limits that would reduce its emissions of a wide range of toxic and other pollutants.

It’s true that PSNH’s much-touted and hugely expensive scrubber project now coming online at Merrimack Station will ultimately reduce some types of toxic pollution to the air. But PSNH wants to increase its energy rates by 15% to pay for the scrubber. Other required pollution controls, including those imposed by important new federal rules, may lead to further costs. This will make PSNH’s power plants an even worse deal for New Hampshire ratepayers.

Merrimack Station also sends more carbon dioxide into the air than any other source in New Hampshire, and the scrubber won’t change that. Burning coal is a dirty way to generate power that imperils the climate, and it is time for New England to abandon it for cleaner alternatives that safeguard our health and environment and transition us toward a new energy system.

New Hampshire may never be willing to relinquish its leading spot on the presidential primary calendar. But living with New England’s largest source of toxic pollution despite its unacceptable costs – to ratepayers and the environment – is a distinction that New Hampshire should be doing everything in its power to lose.

The announcement of a fare increase is never welcome news for transportation users, and Tuesday’s bombshell from the MBTA that it is proposing a hike of between 35% and 43% across the board come July, accompanied by drastic service cuts, made it a very unhappy New Year around the Commonwealth. CLF, along with our fellow members of Transportation for Massachusetts (T4MA) — a diverse coalition of Massachusetts organizations working for an environmentally sustainable, reliable and affordable transportation system — oppose a fare increase that by itself can’t begin to fix the T’s financial problems and is inherently unfair.

T4MA objects to the MBTA’s proposal because it attempts to solve a much larger problem of insufficient funding for public transportation exclusively on the back of transit riders, who are traveling in ways that reduce traffic and benefit the environment. Any fare increase should be part of a comprehensive financial plan that addresses not only the MBTA’s operating deficit for at least the next several years, but also provides the funds needed to address the T’s maintenance and capital needs without further driving up debt service costs.

Moreover, a blanket fare increase affecting the bus, subway, and commuter rail system at the same rate takes into account neither the different needs of different transit users nor the varied costs of providing transit for buses, the subway, and commuter rail. The result would be to disproportionately burden the transit users who can least afford it, particularly bus riders.

And it’s not just public transportation that’s chronically underfunded and nearing collapse. It’s our roads and bridges and the entire transportation system in Massachusetts. Likewise, it is not just public transportation that is supported by state and federal government — the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges is heavily subsidized. As both drivers and public transportation users share the benefits of a working transportation system–from easier access to where we need to go to reduced congestion to cleaner air–so must they share the burden of  financing it. Any fare increases must be paired with other revenue-generating mechanisms with a goal of funding a transportation system that works for everyone.

At a MassDOT Board of Directors meeting Wednesday, board members expressed deep concern about the MBTA’s proposal. T and MassDOT officials said that the public’s input will be key in finalizing a plan.

The public will have an opportunity to comment on the MBTA’s proposals in a series of hearings that will be held  around the state from mid-January through March. CLF and other T4MA members will be filing comments and testifying at the hearings to ensure that the interests of our various memberships are addressed in crafting the final proposal. We encourage you to attend a hearing and join us in calling for a plan that pairs any proposed increase with other revenue-generating mechanisms and fairly shares the burden of maintaining and improving our transportation system.

For more on the fare increase and how people are responding, check out some of the media coverage:

Proposed T Service Cuts, Fare Hikes: ‘Not An Easy Choice’ (WBUR)

MBTA Riders Could Face Steep Fare Hikes (AP)

“T” Faces Service Cuts, Fare Hikes (State House News Service)

MBTA Riders Face Fare Hikes as High as 43% (Fox 25 News)

The Cape Wind offshore wind project moved one big step closer to construction yesterday when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) affirmed the MA Department of Public Utilities’ (DPU’s) finding that the project’s costs are reasonable in light of the many benefits it will bring.

Massachusetts’s highest court upheld the November 2010 decision of the DPU, which approved a critically important contract between Cape Wind and National Grid in which the electric utility agreed to purchase half of Cape Wind’s output. Cape Wind opponents had appealed the DPU’s decision— the latest in an endless stream of ill-fated maneuvers intended to block the nation-leading clean energy project from being built.

CLF intervened in the appeal proceeding with fellow environmental groups NRDC and Clean Power Now, making the case that the DPU’s extensively-researched decision showed clearly that Cape Wind’s benefits would outweigh its costs. Among these benefits is the project’s close proximity to areas of high electricity demand, which gives it logistical advantages over obtaining power from more distant energy projects that have been proposed.

The High Court’s validation should make it easier for Cape Wind to secure a buyer for the other half of the wind farm’s output and attract project investors to help finance construction. When built, after more than a decade of exhaustive reviews, Cape Wind will be the nation’s first offshore wind project.

Encouraged by yesterday’s decision, Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind, spelled out some of the benefits Massachusetts residents could anticipate when Cape Wind is built, including, “creating up to 1,000 jobs, providing Massachusetts with cleaner air, greater energy independence and a leadership position in offshore wind power.”

We at CLF say, “Bring it on…not a moment too soon!”

courtesy Society for Protection of New Hampshire Forests

Last week brought a fitting capstone to the botched year-long rollout of the Northern Pass project.  In a disturbing turn of events, the project developers sought to scuttle a historic plan to preserve a storied wilderness in New Hampshire’s North Country. Their attempt failed, but what the episode says about their future tactics is anything but encouraging for New Hampshire and the region.

Northern Pass Transmission, LLC (NPT) – a partnership between Northeast Utilities and NSTAR – has spent 2011:

• misrepresenting the Northern Pass project’s environmental benefits,
• misleading the public about potential savings to New Hampshire electric ratepayers,
• withdrawing and refusing to analyze alternatives (including options that would avoid overhead lines through the White Mountain National Forest),
• blocking a full assessment of the nature and extent of the region’s need for more electricity imports from Canada, and
• trying to buy off landowners along the northernmost 40 miles of the project.

It has been clear for some time that the current proposal is really about two things – securing profits for Hydro-Québec and propping up NU subsidiary PSNH’s weakening bottom line. CLF is not alone in wondering: what’s in it for New Hampshire?

Last week was a vivid preview. And if you care about New Hampshire’s iconic wilderness landscapes or the organizations that protect them, it’s not a pretty picture.

Earlier this fall, we learned that NPT was bidding to purchase a strip of land through one of the North Country’s crown jewels – the magnificent Balsams estate in Dixville Notch – from its owner, the Neil Tillotson Trust.

Enter the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF), a key collaborator with CLF on Northern Pass advocacy and one of the state’s leading land conservation organizations. Culminating a decade of effort to preserve the Balsams landscape, SPNHF secured from the Trust a conservation easement over 5,800 acres of spectacular wilderness surrounding the resort, provided that SPNHF raises $850,000 for the easement by mid-January. (You can follow the effort here. Word is that, as of today, SPNHF is nearly a third of the way there.) The easement would preclude any transmission corridor.

The land is an ecological and scenic marvel, and the deal marks a historic land preservation achievement for SPNHF, the Trust, and New Hampshire as a whole.

The Balsams Resort in winter (photo credit: j-fi/flickr)

NPT’s bizarre and audacious response: launch a legal attack on the conservation plan.

Last week, NPT asked the state Attorney General’s Office to disapprove the easement on the ground that NPT’s earlier bid was higher. Then on Friday of last week, NPT made a very public offer to buy both the transmission corridor and the conservation easement, which would secure a right to site the Northern Pass project on the Balsams property. The last move was particularly odd because most bidding wars don’t involve publicly bullying a seller – a respected charitable trust no less – into accepting an offer.

As noted in the Concord Monitor and on NHPR, news came late Friday afternoon that the state Attorney General’s Office had approved the sale of the conservation easement to SPNHF, despite NPT’s objections and richer offers. The approval letter noted that it was well within the Trust’s charitable purposes and discretion to sell the easement to SPNHF for less than NPT’s offer. In other words, the Trust should be free to decide that preserving the Balsams property for the benefit of the North Country is more important than the Trust’s financial return.

Why was NPT’s attack on the conservation plan so troubling?

• NPT sought to undermine land preservation efforts throughout New Hampshire. Land preservation almost always requires generosity – the landowner’s decision to accept less than market value or to make an outright donation of an easement. If it had been successful, NPT’s legal attack would have left no room for such generosity, granting any private developer the power to block a landowning non-profit’s preservation of its land whenever the developer offered more money than the conservation organization or community that would hold the conservation easement.
• NPT is on war footing.  NPT is pursuing the equivalent of scorched earth litigation, resorting to strong-arm tactics and legal appeals to the state, including a threat of litigation to block the SPNHF easement that, as of today, remains on the table. At this early stage of the project’s permitting, this is exactly the opposite of what we need – a well-informed regional and statewide dialogue about our energy future, the project’s potential role if any, and the alternatives to traditional overhead lines along NPT’s proposed route.
• NPT has broken its promise to find a route “that has support of property owners.”  The Trust made a decision not to sell to NPT; within days, NPT was crying foul to a state official.  NPT’s appeal to the state reveals, for all to see, that NPT will respect the will of landowners only when that will is to sell NPT the land it wants. As others pointed out before the Attorney General Office’s decision, NPT’s carefully-worded disinterest in using eminent domain (except as a “very last resort,” in the words of PSNH President Gary Long) is no longer credible, if it ever was.
• NPT is willing to spend huge sums, but only to get the project it wants. Without hesitation or public discussion, NPT offered what amounts to a $1 million donation (of Hydro-Québec’s money) to the Trust, including a $200,000 grant to Colebrook Hospital and the money for the Balsams conservation easement. Clearly, NPT is willing to spend millions above and beyond market costs to get the route it wants, even as it rejects as too costly alternatives that could be better for New Hampshire.

Above all, the Balsams episode shows that NPT is not pursuing the Northern Pass proposal as a public-minded enterprise for the “good of all of New Hampshire.” With so much at stake for the region and New Hampshire, CLF’s work of 2012 is to secure a searching and rigorous public review process that will scrutinize every element of the Northern Pass project and ensure that the public interest – and not the dollars in NPT’s coffers – determines the project’s fate.

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northernpass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

Our systems for creating, conveying and using energy are full of nooks, crannies, odd corners and unexpected cul-de-sacs. The wholesale electricity system that includes large generators and the wires and associated hardware that moves power to the local distribution system where energy is transmitted to homes, offices, factories, streetlights and your cell phone charger is a great example of this reality.  However, the regulatory system we have developed over the last 15 years means that much of the information about that system is available online with some notable exceptions like specific maps, apparently on the theory that terrorists would have trouble finding massive power plants and giant transmission towers if they only had Google Earth and their eyes to guide them.

One such odd corner is the fact that the wholesale electricity system sometimes runs into problems during periods when electrical demand gets very low.  These moments, which tend to happen at night when there are very moderate spring or fall temperatures and our air conditioners and heaters are idle and the majority of the population is asleep with their lights off.  As explained by the New England System Operator in a newsletter article these moments are known as Minimum Generation Emergencies.

As an electricity system approaches this kind of condition it becomes hard to maintain the frequency of the power, an obscure but important function of a grid operator.  The operator will begin to order the shut down of power plants but some plants (like many coal fired power plants) simply can not switch off on a moments notice and others (like nuclear power plants) are pretty much always allowed to run.  In this kind of situation wind turbines are “curtailed” (turned off).

None of this makes anyone happy.  Wind facilities that could be generating electricity with no effort are being curtailed.  Some powerplants continue to operate, generating pollution from smokestacks and creating dangerous waste products for even less good reason than usual and in fact some power plants are given special payments to turn themselves down or off. And it happens more than you might think, this morning (December 22, 2012) we approached this condition reports the New England Independent System Operator (ISO-NE), triggering the first steps and measures taken to deal with this kind of condition.

As described in the recent ISO-NE wind integration study (previously discussed on this blog) we do not need to deploy new technologies to store electricity any time in the near future as we ramp up our use of naturally variable energy resources like wind and solar.  However, the fact that (even today) these kind of minimum generation emergencies can happen illustrates the value that storage can have.  Energy storage, whether it is in the form of batteries, heat or mechanical energy in a flywheel, can help to create a resilient and flexible system that efficiently meets our needs will minimizes the pollution we put out into the environment.

There is a saying that as goes Maine, so goes the nation. That is proving to be true, with one slight twist: As goes New England, so goes the nation’s environmental policy.

If you look at a wind map of the United States you’ll see that all prevailing winds east of the Mississippi eventually converge right here, in New England. That helps make New England the place so many of us love – warm summers, stunning falls, and cold, snowy winters – but it also makes New England the tailpipe of the nation.

Beginning in the mid-20^th century, researchers began documenting evidence of the effect of acid rain on Camel’s Hump in Vermont’s Green Mountains. They documented dramatic decreases in biomass, forest reproduction, seed germination, and other damaging effects among such species as red spruce, mountain maple, sugar maple, and beech – some of the trees whose brilliant fall colors draw millions of tourists to New England each fall. The cause? Acid rain.

Today, the problem continues, though in different ways. Antiquated coal plants built before 1970 have long enjoyed loopholes in the Clean Air Act that allowed them to emit toxic pollutants without modern controls. They have spewed a mix of mercury, arsenic, lead, and soot that harms all Americans by degrading our air and water quality, as well as our public health by increasing the rates of lung disease and causing asthma attacks, among other ailments. Even though many New England states have imposed modern controls on their plants, winds continue to carry pollution from the rest of the country that harms New England’s environment and its people.

That’s why today’s ruling from the EPA on the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) is so laudable. As my colleague Jonathan Peress said in a press statement, these standards “amount to one of the most significant public health and environmental measures in years.” They are also similar to standards we adopted here in New England years ago.

According to EPA estimates, these standards will prevent 11,000 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks annually among Americans by 2016. The standards will also save at least $59 billion measured as a reduction in premature deaths, lower health care costs, and fewer absences from work or school. That is undoubtedly a good thing. It is also undoubtedly long overdue.

The affected coal plants are toxic dinosaurs. According to an AP survey, the average age of the plants is 51 years – some of them were even built when Harry S Truman was president. EPA’s new standards will finally allow the public health protections, signed into law by George H.W. Bush as a part of the Clean Air Act of 1990, to do their job. As Ilan Levin, associate director of Environmental Integrity Project, said in a piece on Climate Progress, “The only thing more shocking than the large amounts of toxic chemicals released into the air each year … is the fact that these emissions have been allowed for so many years.”

Here in New England, we have long understood the importance of controlling harmful pollution. CLF together with a close coalition pushed for strict state air pollution standards to clean up the dirtiest plants in Massachusetts. In 2001, the Department of Environmental Protection adopted regulations known as “The Filthy Five” that went beyond the Federal Clean Air Act of 1970, and tackled the issues of mercury and carbon dioxide. From our experience with stringent state standards in Massachusetts and Connecticut, we know the substantial benefits to public health and the environment that will result from these rules.

Concern that these standards will directly shut down plants is misguided. According to an AP survey, “not a single plant operator said the EPA rules were solely to blame for a closure.” Instead, a confluence of factors have already initiated a broad technology shift we’re already seeing here in New England: coal prices are rising and natural gas prices are declining against a background of strict state clean air rules. Given this, many (but not all) of New England’s plants have either already installed modern pollution controls, or are actively planning for retirement, in ways that will keep the lights on.

I applaud the EPA, and Administrator Jackson, for their good work on these standards. We will continue to support them, and they’ll need our help.

And in any event, how long are people to suffer while clean air requirements on the books go unenforced? 21 years (since 1990) is too long. The time has come. Finally.

photo credit: Witthaya Phonsawat

With the Northern Pass project on the table, as well as other looming projects and initiatives to increase New England’s imports of Canadian hydroelectric power, the region’s energy future is coming to a crossroads. The choice to rely on new imports will have consequences that endure for decades, so it’s critical the region use the best possible data and analysis to weigh the public costs and benefits of going down this road. To date, there have been almost no objective, professional assessments of the ramifications.

Today, CLF is making available to the public a technical report prepared by Synapse Energy Economics addressing a crucial issue: the potential effects of new imports on the region’s own renewable power industry. 

The report, Renewable Portfolio Standards and Requirements (PDF), explains how the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) of each New England state and New York address hydropower and then examines the potential effects of allowing Canadian large-scale hydropower to qualify for incentives by allowing such power to count toward states’ goals for renewable power under RPS programs.

Vermont is currently the only state that allows Canadian hydropower to qualify for its (now voluntary) RPS. If Vermont elects to use Canadian hydropower to fulfill all or most of its RPS goal (which is contemplated by pending legislation that would make Vermont’s RPS mandatory), there would be a modest but important reduction in the incentives available to new renewable projects in the region. The report concludes that there would be a much more significant impact if the RPS programs in other states were changed to allow Canadian hydropower to qualify (as was proposed in New Hampshire and Connecticut earlier this year and is being discussed right now in Massachusetts). In that scenario, imports from Northern Pass (or import projects of similar size) would swamp the market, taking up 45% of the region’s mandate for new renewable power and deeply undermining the viability of new renewable development in the Northeast.

This finding is a new illustration of why CLF opposes changing RPS laws to count large-scale hydropower toward the region’s renewable goals, a result that would both harm local renewable projects and send incentives funded by New England ratepayers out of the country to suppliers that do not need them.

For their part, Northern Pass’s developers have downplayed any risks to local renewable energy but have refused to refrain from lobbying for and securing the very changes to the RPS laws that Synapse predicts would, when paired with new imports through Northern Pass, cut the legs out from under renewable energy based in New England. It is no wonder that it’s not only CLF sounding the alarm on this issue:  electric industry veterans like Cynthia Arcate and the trade association of New England’s competitive electric generating companies have also expressed concern.

The bottom line for CLF: any plan to increase imports will need a robust and comprehensive set of enforceable commitments – which are completely absent in the current Northern Pass proposal – for the region to ensure that New England’s own renewable energy industry will prosper and grow into the future. 

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northernpass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

An incisive and clear essay by Peter Rothstein, President of the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC), published on the Commonwealth Magazine website makes powerful and accurate points about the benefits of clean energy to the regional economy.  His analysis and arguments are deeply consistent with the points that CLF’s Jonathan Peress made in a recent entry on this blog outlining the benefits of the investments generated by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) documented in a study by the Analysis Group.

Unlike the attacks on the clean energy programs that he is responding to, Rothstein backs his assertions up with facts and figures. Here is a long quotation from his essay:

Clean energy investments have many positive benefits, making our energy infrastructure more efficient and sustainable and while growing the regional economy. Though you might not know it from the headlines, the clean energy sector is one of the few bright spots in the economy, growing steadily throughout the recession – 6.7 percent from July 2010 to July 2011 alone. Massachusetts is now home to more than 4,900 clean energy businesses and 64,000 clean energy workers – 1.5 percent of the Commonwealth’s workforce. This job growth is not a transfer of jobs from other industries – it’s a net increase that results from the Massachusetts innovation economy creating new value for national and international markets, not just local.

 Clean energy is starting to grow in much the same way as the IT and biotech sectors, which took decades to become powerhouses of our innovation economy. Massachusetts clean energy companies have brought significant new capital from around the world into Massachusetts, earning the largest per capita concentration of US Department of Energy innovation awards. Massachusetts companies have also brought in the second largest concentration of private venture capital in cleantech, a sector which grew 10-fold over the last decade.

 Consumers, businesses, and the Massachusetts economy all win if we stick with policies that drive clean energy investments. The combination of efficiency and renewables prescribed by the Green Communities Act is a positive force to control costs and make bills more predictable for consumers. While the prices of natural gas and oil are anything but predictable, the impact of investing in renewables is clear and positive as these technologies continue to get cheaper. Solar costs have come down nearly 60 percent since 2008 while wind turbine prices have dropped 18 percent.

It is indeed good news that new technologies not only confront the brutal logic of climate change but also boost our economy by virtue of being sound investments.  At such times as these, we should treasure every bit of good news we find.

Courtesy of Putneypucs @ flickr. Creative Commons

In talking with guests at CLF’s holiday party last week, I was reminded of something simple and powerful: In this movement, we’re all leaders.

Helping New England thrive is a group effort.  It’s also CLF’s vision. To make it happen we work with  our colleagues, our allies, and our friends – many of whom were present at the party.

These guests included elected officials, heads of state and government officials, business and nonprofit CEOs – even an international delegation. CLF staff and alumni were there. Board members, families and friends joined us.  And also many dedicated people who help New England thrive by doing their part – sometimes small but always heartfelt – every day, week or month.

Talking with many present, I was reminded of what I have often thought: To succeed, we need each other.

I was also reminded of the story of an 8 year old girl with courage and a voice, but struggling against acute asthma. At a hearing for a proposed project in western MA that would aggravate her asthma and further threaten her community, she was sitting with my colleague Sue Reid, vp and director, CLF Massachusetts. She had in her hand a one page handwritten statement she was prepared to deliver that said, among other things, “It’s not fair!” After the committee spoke, she turned to Sue and said: “This really isn’t fair!”

She was right. We have followed her lead, and are working hard for fairness and justice for her community. We all should learn from her, and be inspired by her. She is a leader in our movement.

Reflecting on our holiday season, this message seems appropriate: we are sustained by the work of our allies and friends. In this movement, it does take a village. And everyone truly is a leader.

To all those who have worked with us, to our donors, sponsors, and allies, and to our friends and family, thank you. Without your leadership, we couldn’t do what we do.

May have you have a wonderful Holiday season.